MEANING IN MITZVOT by Rabbi Asher Meir

Each week we discuss one familiar halakhic practice and try to show its beauty and meaning. The columns are based on the commentary “Meaning in Mitzvot” on Kitzur Shulchan Arukh, which is serialized on Yeshivat Har Etzion’s Virtual Beit Midrash, www.vbm-torah.org

WOMEN AND HAVDALAH

Many Acharonim mention a custom that women don’t drink wine from the cup of Havdala, unless a woman herself makes the blessings (MB 296:6). The SHLAH explains that this is because of the sin of Adam and Chava. According to one tradition, the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil was a vine, and Chava drank of the wine and then offered some to Adam. This wine was also a “havdala”, but a very negative one: it ushered in not the beginning of the work week but the entire era of the curse of man (cited in Taamei HaMinhagim).

Yet a popular tradition says that the reason is that women who drink from havdala will grow a mustache! What is the connection between these two explanations?

Rav Nachman of Breslav teaches at length the significance of men’s facial hair. We can understand his explanation if we recall that Chasidut sometimes likens man to the sun, and woman to the moon. The sun is the source of all the earth’s light and energy, yet it is impossible to look at it unless it is obscured. Likewise, the face of the man, which symbolizes the revealed aspect of HaShem’s radiance, is partly obscured by beard and peyot so that we are able to endure its glow (Likutei Torah Hilkhot Giluach).
It logically follows that the face of a woman, which symbolizes the reflection of the Divine Light and its manifestation in this world, should not be obscured, since on the contrary, it is this illumination which we are constantly endeavoring to augment.

The weekdays and Shabbat are also likened to the sun and the moon. The weekdays are the time of actively creating holiness; Shabbat the time of passively receiving and reflecting holiness. The seemingly mundane activities of the work week are the veil which obscures the immense sanctity our acts generate when carried out according to Torah. Havdala acknowledges the distinction between these two times of the week; it ushers in the time of the obligatory obscuring of the light of the sun.
But Chava’s havdala did the opposite. While humans can never directly perceive the Divine Light unless it is veiled in our mundande existence, HaShem created the world with the potential to be an ideal mirror or expression of His radiance - according to its own level. This would have been achieved on the very first Shabbat, were it not for the first sin. 

So while havdala is meant to demarcate the necessary diminishing of the light of the sun, which enables us to carry out our weekday activities in holiness, Chava’s havdala demarcated the tragic diminishing of the light of the moon, impairing the ability of this world to reflect and absorb holiness. Normal havdala recalls the hair on the face of a man; Chava’s havdala suggests the idea of hair on the face of a woman. It is only appropriate that a woman who sought to re-enact Chava’s original havdala wine would be requited by growing hair on her face.

Rabbi Meir is in the process of writing a monumental companion to Kitzur Shulchan Aruch which beautifully presents the meanings in our mitzvot and halacha. He is also directing the Jewish Business Response Forum at the Center for Business Ethics and Social Responsibility, Jerusalem College of Technology - Machon Lev. The forum aims to help business people run their firms according to Torah, by obtaining prompt, relevant responses to their questions.